


You Reap What You Sow

by BID



Series: Dishonored Prompt Oneshots [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bad Ending, Betrayal, Dysfunctional Relationships, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Medium Chaos (Dishonored), breaking up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 11:24:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21207737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BID/pseuds/BID
Summary: Daud and Martin, shortly after the child Empress has risen to power, are stuck in a tricky situation. Unfortunately, Corvo comes to, well, not exactly help.





	You Reap What You Sow

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt requested by Anon on tumblr: "Hold me just a little longer" Martin/Daud
> 
> This is a break-up and betrayal fic, open ending might imply a major character death but not necessarily if you want to be optimistic.

“Hold me just a little longer,” Martin pants, voice strained and sweat standing at his brow, “if you will.”

“It’s not _me_ you need to convince,” Daud growls, “Your glove on the other hand…”

Martin groans, “Are you about to say ‘I told you so’ when we’re a very, very short drop away from getting eaten alive by a swarm of the angriest rats in Dunwall?!”

“That would make two ‘I told you so’s then,” Daud snaps back, “give me another minute and I’m sure I can come up with a couple more to round it off.”

“Wait, what’s the first?”

“Would you _shut up_ for once in your life Martin, I’m trying to-” Daud’s jaw clicks shut as a noise has him look up and sees who stands at the ledge of the metal walkway. Black boots inches away from Daud’s fingertips that hold both him and Martin over a blocked-off alleyway choking with rats. 

“Attano,” he greets, warily.

“Daud,” the Masked Felon replies, but his gaze obviously sweeps down to the person hanging below, “never expected to find you helping an Overseer, let alone tear your stitches for one.” _’Stitches?’_ he hears Martin mutter below, muffled through his mask, but Daud ignores him for the moment. “You wouldn’t terribly mind dropping him, would you?”

“Got attached to this one at some point, though Void knows why,” Daud admits warily, “and I haven’t killed in nearly a year, as I’ve told you.”

Attano tilts his head and the mask reflects the light of his glowing mark. The rats below sway with the arc of his hand, “I know that. It wouldn’t be you who does the killing, so just drop him and I’ll pull you up.”

“No,” Daud protests quietly, hoping that it’s seen as reluctance and not hostility, “I won’t drop him.” Yet, he’s in no shape to fight right now, with his stitches, as Attano had guessed, ripped, blood soaking into his shirt and jacket, and mana drained to nothing thanks to Martin’s ingenious idea of unexpectedly trying to tag along with a void-damned music box, after Daud had _told him_-

“I already stuck a knife in your gut,” Attano responds, voice almost _pitiful_ with the tired sigh he gives, “if you keep that one around, your back will fair the same, assuming he doesn’t opt for poison again. Isn’t that right Martin?”

“Corvo,” Martin greets, and Daud can hear the fear behind the false cheer, can feel him clinging harder and realises that, ‘_Oh, Attano is here for **him**_’, “fancy meeting you here. You wouldn’t mind helping us in a spot of bother, no? For old time’s sake?”

Corvo crouches down, his feet bracketing Daud’s hand and grabs him tight by the wrist with his left. “For old time’s sake,” Corvo sneers, “you should have stayed dead when you had the chance.”

“Come now Corvo, we didn’t have _options_, you know-”

“You poisoned me, you wanted to keep my corpse as yet another scapegoat, and then you stole, and _hit_ my _daughter_,” Attano spits back, rips the mask off of his face with his free hand, and even without it he looks like a harbinger of death. Long, windswept, black hair framing his gaunt face and dark eyes, his teeth gleaming sharp white as he snarls, “You should be glad I’m feeling charitable to _just_ feed you to the rats and nothing worse.” 

Daud finds himself looking down at Martin, who still clings to the music box with one hand and the other to him. His slightly too-large glove sliding with every extra movement of their hands.

“_That’s_ what you wanted poison for?” Daud snaps disbelieving, “You know damn well I quit and then you go and ask me to help you poison the man whose life I regret _ruining beyond recognition_?!”

“Daud, it wasn’t like that, we didn’t-”

“Who sold it to you anyway, Vladko? Jenkins?”

“What does it matter, are you really going to take your chances with him over _me_, after all we’ve had? After all this time?” Martin's voice turns soft, almost sweet and he is sure that if he could see his face it’d play right along, “_Daud_...” 

Corvo’s grip tightens on him, tight enough as that he could take his weigh (or throw him off) and Daud looks up to him. Their eyes meet, equally Serkonan black, equally exhausted, equally furious, he remembers Corvo’s words after he’d split him open, after Daud had asked for his life, for the lives of his people. How he’d granted it, for a boon, tongue loose and skin sweat-slick from the poison’s fever, but not flinching from the Whalers that had immediately circled around Daud. 

He remembers how he’d thought from the start, that one day he will regret succumbing to the temptation that is Teague Martin’s charm, but what he doesn’t remember, is when he stopped being quite so wary of the man. 

“Tell me,” Daud asks, his voice barely above a growl, “what was the day again, that you ascended to High Overseer?”

“On the 28th evening of High Cold, the announcements-,” Martin answers immediately, but Daud already stopped listening, he is watching Corvo’s face that hovers above him, watches his eyebrow twitch. 

“No,” Corvo interrupts, and Daud’s stomach drops, only now realises that the world is slowly spinning, from blood-loss probably. Of course, he thinks, of _fucking_ course. “You showed up in red the night of the 26th, said you’ve got it all now.”

A hollow laugh rasps itself out of Daud’s throat, he can feel another stitch by his chest tear with the movement, and he let’s go of the ledge. Corvo takes his weight with a grunt and bending his spine with the motion but he holds him, now around the wrist, holds him long enough for Daud to grab him in return, ungloved palms pressed together and their marks pulsing, for just a moment, with the proximity. He hopes his hold is not as weak as it feels with his numb fingers.

Martin’s hand slips in Daud’s grip as he is jostled, and yells, “What in the _Void_, Daud!”

“I’ll take my chances,” he replies calmly, watches Corvo’s surprised expression, “he’s shown more mercy to what’s mine than your Overseers did, _dear_.”

Daud’s right hand uncurls as he let’s go of Martin’s arm, hears his muffled yell through the numb fog that is overtaking his mind, shock or blood loss, who knows. Martin only clings harder, pressing bruises into his wrist, not for the first time but certainly for the last, shouts Daud’s name but no, no he’s done. 

This is done. 

Daud jerks up his knee and Martin’s head snaps back, let’s go in the moment of shock, pain and he falls. 

The rats, that had been squeaking and shuffling _shriek_ below him, as Attano pulls him up onto the walkway, keeps holding onto him as Daud sways on his feet and against him, his vision turning black for a moment, before he can open his eyes and look down. 

Martin is scurrying backwards on hands and feet, the rats writhing a mere inch away from him, desperate for a taste, until his back hits the grimy alley’s bricks. 

The irony is not lost on Daud, how Martin is in much the same position as Daud had been, red coat in place, beaten, cornered, holding his injury, looking up at Attano who towers above him, who commands the rats with a terrifying, natural skill that one would expect from someone as seasoned as Granny Rags. But, where Daud had torn off his metaphorical mask and laid himself bare before Attano’s judgement, what ultimately got him spared, he thinks, Holger’s Grimace is still in place on Martin’s face. 

Their marks flash brightly in unison where they are still clasped together, more for Daud’s benefit, than Corvo’s surely, and more rats come rushing from the shadows, from the gaps in the stonework as Corvo’s expression grows vicious, gleeful. 

“How does it feel,” Attano calls down to Martin, “To reap what you sow?”

**Author's Note:**

> As aptly said by Shores: 
> 
> "Nothing says 'we're over' like purposefully dropping your lover into a swarm of aggressive plague-carrying rats."


End file.
